


Taste Testers

by martxoa



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Humor, newly adopted Kara and Alex as kids bond over food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 04:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12522564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martxoa/pseuds/martxoa
Summary: Alex's new sister was weird, but the worst thing about her might have been that she ate literally everything, all the time. She tries to handle Kara's enormous appetite as best she could, but after Kara has a bad day at school, Alex decides to take matters a little more fully into her own hands.





	Taste Testers

Her new sister didn’t talk much but, as Alex observed, that may have partially been because Kara’s mouth was too preoccupied with eating anyway. 

Eliza and Jeremiah explained it in scientific terms that Alex understood perfectly well--she’d been given a crash course on Kryptonian physiology so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by some of Kara’s quirks--but it didn’t take a future bio-engineer to understand that whatever Kara was, they apparently had bottomless stomachs. 

She ate everything--sometimes things that weren’t even technically supposed to be edible (although in Kara’s defense, she hadn’t actually _meant_ to swallow the napkin; it had been her first time eating pie. She was just excited. And way more careful afterward when Eliza made dessert). Alex took to hoarding food, at first, if she wanted to save something for later, but Kara always managed to sniff it out. Literally. It got to the point where Alex had to sit Kara down and have a very pointed discussion with her about food. 

“Okay, Kara, we’re sisters now. And you want to get along with me, right?” 

Kara nodded, sitting cross legged on the family room couch. “Mm-hm, of course.” 

“Then we need to talk about the Ho Hos.” 

Kara grinned. “Did you get more?” 

“ _No,_ I did not get more. But it wouldn’t matter if I got more, because you would find them. And eat them. With the wrapper still on...side note, do you _like_ the taste of the wrapper? Or are you just, like, really impatient?” 

Kara shrugged, playing with her fingers. Alex sighed. That was besides the point. 

“What I’m trying to say is...if you want us to be friends--and I’m pretty sure you do, I mean I do--I need you to understand how _important_ Ho Hos are to me. I take all AP classes. Those are really, _really_ hard classes. Do you understand how hard an AP Physics class is?” 

“I read your textbook once while you were doing your homework. Most of the stuff in it is wrong.” 

Alex blinked. “‘Wrong?’” 

“Yes. Physics doesn’t work like that. On Krypton I wanted to join the Science Council, and--” 

“Okay, but that’s how we think it works on Earth Kara, okay!” 

Kara shrunk back. Alex ran a hand through her hair. She was really, really glad Eliza and Jeremiah were at work. Besides, Eliza wouldn’t be happy if she knew Alex was about to start a strict ‘no sharing my snacks’ policy. 

“Kara, I’m sorry, it’s just...we’re getting off topic. What I’m _trying_ to say is...I like having a routine, okay? The first thing I do when I go home, right before I start my mountain of homework, is to relax and eat a Ho Ho. It’s my favorite snack.” 

“Mine too,” Kara agreed, shaking her head in a very serious manner. 

“I’m glad we agree. So I took the liberty of buying these.” 

Alex produced a packet of post-it notes. Kara tilted her head curiously, grabbing the pack from her. Alex started walking back and forth across the carpet. 

“Any family needs rules, right? So this is mine. It’s easy. I’m going to write my name on a post-it note and stick it to my food. If my name is on it, that means you _can’t_ eat it. And you can do the same thing for your food. If my name is on it, you can’t eat it; if your name is on it, I can’t eat it. Anything else is fair game. Okay, Kara?” 

She didn’t answer. Alex stopped. “Kara-- _seriously?”_

Kara stopped. She’d used up the pack of post-it notes, sticking them all over her face and arms. She smiled sheepishly at Alex. 

“...We don’t have these on Krypton.” 

Alex took a deep breath. “Just--just leave my Ho Hos alone, okay? If there’s a post-it note on food, don’t eat it. Is that clear enough for you? No-no Ho Hos. Okay?” 

“‘No-no Ho Hos?’” 

“Uh, sure.” 

Kara grabbed a post it note off of her nose. “That sounds kind of strange, but if you say so, Alex.” 

She smiled. “Great. I’m glad we got that settled, Kara. Thanks.” 

Alex felt a little bad about snapping at Kara, and since she readily agreed to Alex’s request, she felt even worse. So she reached a hand out to gently pat her on the head kind of awkwardly. Kara lifted her head, pushing into Alex’s hand a little and closing her eyes. 

“Oh my God you puppy,” Alex mumbled. 

The system worked perfectly well for the first few hours or so. 

There was a general store near their house and the first thing she did was grab a box, running back into the house and slapping a post-it note on it. She put it in the pantry and set to work making sure everything that was hers got sorted out. Then she grabbed her backpack and started on her homework. She saw Kara wander over to the pantry at one point, opening it and her face melting into a disappointed pout when she saw how many foodstuffs were now officially off limits. Alex tried to ignore it. There was plenty of food, and Kara proved it when she closed the pantry with her arms full anyway. 

“Kara, remember, you’ve got to _cook_ the popcorn first,” Alex said, raising her voice when she saw Kara walk past her with a bag.

“Cook it?” 

“Yeah. Otherwise it’s just kernels. You need to heat it up until you hear a ‘pop’ sound. _Pop, pop pop_ , you know?” 

“Got it!” 

Alex scratched the side of her head with her eraser as she tried to figure out a particularly difficult problem--

_Pop pop popopopoppopopop!_

“Kara, _IN THE MICROWAVE!”_

She slammed her pencil on the table and stood up. In the family room, Kara was sitting in front of the TV, with popcorn blown up in her face and all over the surrounding couch and floor. 

“...It popped,” Kara said in a small voice. “Can I eat it now?” 

Alex held back a snort. She got up and grabbed the vacuum cleaner. 

“Okay Kara, don’t worry, I’ll clean it--” 

“No, no, I can do it!” 

“Kara, there’s kernels all over the carpet--oh. _Oh.”_

Kara shrunk as far back in the couch as she could, staring at the vacuum cleaner warily. Alex remembered the first time Eliza had used it with Kara in the house; she covered her ears and started crying because it hurt her ears so badly. 

“...Do you want me to grab those special earplugs Dad has been working on for you?” 

Kara shook her head. “They don’t work. Please, Alex, the vacuum _hurts._ It’s too loud.” 

Alex grit her teeth, patience wearing thin. She had homework. A _lot_ of homework. And if Eliza and Jeremiah came home and Kara hadn’t finished cleaning up all the popcorn, they’d make it Alex’s fault. Even if Alex _did_ manage to clean everything up, they’d still smell the burnt popcorn and she’d get in trouble anyway.

“Okay, Kara, clean it up--” 

“Done!” 

Alex’s jaw dropped. The popcorn was gone. Whether in Kara’s stomach or the garbage, Alex didn’t know and didn’t care at the moment. Kara had been sitting on the couch two seconds ago but now she was standing in front of Alex with her hands on her hips. She thought there might have been a blur in between. 

“I--o-okay. You cleaned it up. Good job. Really...good...job.” 

Kara’s ears perked up. “Eliza’s home!” 

“Wait, she’s--” 

There was a _click_ of the key in the lock and Eliza stepped through the doorway. Kara wasn’t in front of Alex anymore; she’d already met Eliza at the door, no doubt. Alex hated that. It was weird how Alex had to explain so much of the world to Kara, but Kara still seemed like she was two steps ahead of her so much of the time because of her senses. When Alex reached the front door, Eliza was hugging Kara. 

“Kara, honey, how was your day?” 

“Great! Alex did homework and I made popcorn.” 

“Oh, that’s nice.” She looked at Alex. “Alexandra, honey, did you get all of your homework done?” 

“Not _all_ of it, but I’m almost done.” 

“You need to make sure you’re not getting distracted. Maybe you should find a better spot than the kitchen.” 

Alex bit her cheek so she wouldn’t point out that she was doing just fine focusing until Kara caused a minor explosion. Eliza walked past them into the kitchen, and Kara followed behind her. 

“How was work, Mom?” Alex asked politely. 

“Busy,” she answered. “I still need to finish my dissertation...hopefully your father can help me look at it.” 

She opened the pantry. “Between Kara and this new project I’m starting I’ve barely had time to work on it.” 

She found Alex’s Ho Hos. “Alexandra, why is your name on these?” 

“Um--” 

“Because Alex said ‘No No Ho Hos!’” Kara answered helpfully, grinning from ear to ear. 

Eliza’s eyes widened. She turned around and stared at Alex, who had the sense to look scared. 

“Alexandra Danvers, I do not know what ‘No No Ho Hos’ is supposed to mean, but you are _not_ teaching that language to my new daughter!”

Alex held up her hands as if Eliza were pointing a gun at her--if that gun were loaded with the threat of a grounding rather than bullets. Poor Kara deflated immediately. 

“Did I say it wrong…?” Kara asked softly. 

So yeah. Alex had it made clear to her in no uncertain terms that she had to learn to share. 

***

Despite Eliza insisting that Alex and Kara had to share their food, Kara still took Alex’s request very seriously. Alex’s Ho Hos were still off limits no matter what Kara was permitted to do, and if she saw Alex eat it, Kara didn’t want to touch that either. 

Which was nice, except for the fact that Kara second guessing whether or not Alex would want her to eat _anything_ was kind of inconvenient for her. Kara was hungry. A lot. And there was only so much food in the house for her to eat. It didn’t help that all of the snacks and junk food she normally supplemented her diet on were now, in her mind, Alex Foods and Alex would not be happy if Kara ate Alex Food.

Which led to what Alex referred to from that day forward as ‘the daisy incident.’ 

Eliza had a little garden. There were some vegetables in that garden. Kara liked watching Eliza work, as she explained to her what all of the plants were. She didn’t mind if Kara wanted to grab a tomato and try it for herself, either. 

“We don’t have these on Krypton either,” she would say, which was what she said to almost everything. It led, however, to the unfortunate side effect of Kara thinking that all plants were as edible as tomatoes and peas. 

Which was bad when, one day, Kara came home crying from school. 

“Hey Kara, today I’m going to teach you about Buffy so if anyone talks about it--hey, what’s wrong?” 

Kara was sniffling. Alex grabbed her and led her into the kitchen. 

“Hold on,” she told her. Kara grabbed the table. “I mean wait here, Kara.” 

“Right,” she said. 

Alex grabbed a box of Ho Hos. She handed one to Kara. “Eat it and tell me what’s wrong,” she said. 

Kara looked at the Ho Ho. “I’m not hungry.” 

“Lies. Absolute lies. Come on,” Alex waved it under her nose. “It’s chocolaaaaaate.” 

Kara finally grabbed it, popping it into her mouth. She chewed and said: 

“...Some kids at school were making fun of me.” 

“Aw, Kara, I’m sorry. What happened?” 

“We went outside, and I got hungry.” 

Alex’s eyes widened. An image of Kara absent mindedly gnawing on some poor kid’s backpack strap came to mind, but she shook it from her mind. 

“There were some flowers, and Eliza always lets me eat the ones in her garden, you know? So I grabbed them and started eating some.” 

“You started...eating wildflowers.” 

“Yeah. They were white and yellow in the middle. I thought that meant they’d taste like lemon and vanilla...I was wrong. They didn’t taste bad though. But some kids saw me eating them and started laughing at me. They called me a cow and started mooing. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it _sounded_ really mean.” 

Watching Kara unenthusiastically eating a Ho Ho, frowning down at the table, Alex suddenly felt angry. It was a burst of anger unlike any she’d ever felt before. How could these kids make fun of Kara? She didn’t hurt anyone. She wasn’t hurting anyone because she wanted to eat a daisy. It wasn’t any of their business. They had no right to call Kara a _cow._

The hand she didn’t put on Kara’s back to comfort her had curled into a fist. She wished she could sink it into those kids’ faces. She didn’t care that they were younger than her. 

“Kara, it _is_ mean, and you shouldn’t let that get to you. That’s their problem.” 

“No it’s not. They’re right. I’m weird. I don’t know why I can’t just eat like a normal person.” 

“You _are_ normal, Kara. That’s how normal Kryptonians eat.” 

“No it isn’t!” Kara burst out. “I didn’t need to eat everything all the time on Krypton. My mother and father didn’t need to stop me from accidentally eating stuff that wasn’t edible. No one thought I was a cow on Krypton or--or the Kryptonian version--you know what I mean, Alex. I don’t even feel like a Kryptonian anymore. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be now. I’m just _weird.”_

“No you are _not,”_ Alex answered fiercely. “You are not weird. You are--you are special. This is interesting. Interesting is good.” 

“‘Interesting?’ How’s that different from weird?” 

“Weird is bad. Weird is something you don’t want to be around. Interesting is...it’s something you want to learn more about. Something you want to, like, study--” 

Alex paused. 

She’d wanted to test the limits of Kara’s powers before. Eliza and Jeremiah expressly forbid it. There was to be no use of any of Kara’s powers outside of the house, and even then only under the very watchful eye of at least one of them.

But this wasn’t asking Kara to use her laser vision or try and lift a car over her head. This was just eating. There was nothing dangerous about that. 

“--Kara, if you don’t know what you are anymore, would you want to like...learn more about yourself?” 

“Yeah,” Kara wiped at her eyes. “Of course.” 

“Want my help?” 

***

Alex’s parents were scientists, so she took the scientific method very seriously. 

“Okay, so experiment number one of the Kara Danvers Sense of Taste Trials.” 

She had made a chart and then printed it out for her clipboard. When Eliza wasn’t home Alex also knew where she kept a spare lab coat, which she utilized. 

“Observation: Kara possesses heightened senses of smell, hearing, sight, and touch. Question: does she also have a heightened sense of taste? Hypothesis: if we test Kara’s palate, we will find that Kara has a heightened sense of taste. To test this, the experiment is as follows: the subject of the test will sit in a chair and be blindfolded. Kara?” 

She gave a thumbs up. Kara had a blindfold on. 

“The subject promises _no_ cheating with x-ray vision. Kara?” 

“No cheating; promise Alex!” 

“Alright. Subject will be presented with three different sandwich cookies. One is Oreo brand; one is a generic brand from the local grocery store; one is Famous Amos brand. Kara will take a bite of each cookie and we will see if she can, by flavor alone, tell what brand of cookie each of these are. Ready?” 

“To eat cookies? Always ready.” 

Alex grinned. “Okay. They’re each on your plate. Try the first one.” 

Kara grabbed it. She took a careful bite, then took the top off of the cookie, licking the cream. She smacked her lips together. 

“...Oreo for the first one.” 

“Alright,” Alex jotted it down. “Second one.” 

Kara did the same thing. “Famous Amos.” 

“Third.” 

“Definitely generic brand.” 

Alex nodded. “You can take the blindfold off now.” 

Kara did. “Did I win?” 

“Kara, this isn’t winning. This is just a scientific test. There’s no ‘winning.’” 

Kara frowned. 

“...You totally won.” 

“YES!” 

“Yeah, you got all three right! So,” Alex started writing on her clipboard. “By analyzing the data, I think it definitely supports the hypothesis that you have a heightened sense of taste. So that’s good.” 

“I guess so? What’s the next test?” 

“Hold on.” 

Alex grabbed a bag. She reached into it and pulled out a package of strips. 

“This is called PTC paper. Lick it.” 

Kara eyed it suspiciously. “Just...lick it.” 

“Yeah.” 

“ _You_ lick it.” 

“Why do I need to lick it?” 

“Well you won’t tell me what it is!” 

“Do you want to do experiments or not?” 

Kara finally grabbed it and pressed her tongue to it. She grimaced immediately. 

“In Rao’s name _what is this it is disgusting.”_

“That means...um...there’s a bunch of genetic stuff it could mean. I think it means you have a certain gene that makes you have special taste buds…? But since you’re Kryptonian it could be something else I guess--you know what, onto the next test.” 

Alex went into the fridge. 

“So Kara, I want to ask you a question,” Alex said, rummaging through the fridge. “Have you ever been full?” 

“Like, not hungry?” 

“No. _Full._ Like ‘I can’t eat anymore food’ full.” 

Kara shook her head ‘no.’ 

“Well, we’re going to see if we can’t change that.”

She wished she’d thought it through a little more; Alex hadn’t really thought about what food she was going to have Kara eat. There was some leftover mashed potatoes Kara somehow hadn’t gone through yet; leftover green beans, since even Kryptonians didn’t consider vegetables to be edible; and a handful of condiments. There was more food in the pantry, but certainly didn’t have enough of one thing to feed her. 

But as Alex thought about it, did that really matter? What mattered wasn’t what Kara ate, it was how much. How many ounces and calories. Alex grabbed a handful of everything she could find and dumped it on the table. 

“You, stay and don’t touch,” she said to Kara. 

She just looked confused, but she nodded. “Uh, sure.” 

She grabbed a small scale from her room. When she walked downstairs, Alex froze in the entryway to the kitchen. 

“Kara what are you _doing?”_

Kara dropped the piece of celery. “I was hungry!” 

“You were so hungry that you resorted to _celery?”_

“...Eliza said once that celery is, like, negative calories. I didn’t think it’d hurt our experiment or whatever.” 

Alex sighed. “Fine, okay, I guess it doesn’t matter.” 

She put the scale on the kitchen table, grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, zeroed it out on the scale, and scooped the leftover mashed potatoes into it. 

“Ten ounces of mashed potatoes. And according to my phone an ounce of mashed potatoes is like…” Alex grabbed her phone and searched. “Twenty-five calories. So two hundred fifty calories. Start with that.” 

She pushed the bowl toward Kara and she ate it in one giant spoonful. Alex’s eyes widened. 

“Okay. More food. Here’s a bag of chicken strips--” 

Kara grabbed the bag, ripped it open, and poured the contents into her mouth. 

“Kara, I didn’t even write down how many calories it was yet!” 

“Sorry!” Kara yelped after she swallowed. Alex grabbed the bag and, luckily, it had the calories and size on the package. 

“Wait, these are _frozen?”_

Alex looked at Kara again. She didn’t look like she particularly enjoyed the experience of eating those chicken strips. 

“Can I eat something warm?” Kara asked. “...Can we try seeing how many Ho Hos I can eat?” 

“Ho Hos aren’t _warm.”_

“But I like them.” 

“So do I. At least I’m not feeding you the green beans.” 

“Oh Rao, anything but the green beans!” Kara answered, throwing her hands up dramatically. Alex couldn’t help snorting. She found a package of hamburger rolls and handed them to her. 

“Can I put butter on it?” Kara asked. 

“We have to measure it really carefully, Kara, you sure you can’t eat it plain?” 

“But what if I finish everything else? You told me I wasn’t allowed to eat butter plain, remember?” 

Alex wrinkled her nose. “Uh, Kara, I _highly_ doubt it will come to that. Now eat.” 

Kara opened the bag. While Alex marked down how much she was eating, Kara crammed four rolls into her mouth at a time. 

***

It was getting dangerously close to coming to that. 

She’d finished off everything in the fridge. Alex still stubbornly refused to give Kara her Ho Hos, so she’d had to set to work making more food. Which actually wasn’t a terrible thing, experiment wise; she could carefully make sure of exactly what the portions and calorie counts were. So Alex started making pancakes. 

Kara really enjoyed the experiment during the long stretch of Alex making pancakes. 

“Whooooo, not full yet!” 

_“Still?”_

“Nope!” Kara started clapping her hands and chanting, “one more plate! One more plate! _One more plate!”_

And Alex would drop another huge stack of pancakes on the table. Which Kara would promptly scarf down. 

All in all, after Alex had managed to burn through three boxes of Aunt Jemima pancakes and the mashed potatoes and hamburger buns, Kara was hovering somewhere around the ten thousand calorie mark. 

Which was great--except Kara was nowhere near close to full. 

“How can they not have more food in the house?” Alex muttered, searching, “Mom knows how much you need to eat! She should have a whole _basement_ full!” 

When she realized that they were running dangerously low on food, they had to get creative. 

Condiments. 

(Kara _still_ refused to touch the green beans.) 

Kara downed an entire bottle of French Mustard before Alex checked the bottle and realized, to her surprise, that apparently mustard had _zero calories per serving._

“Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me,” Alex groaned. 

“What?” Kara asked, rubbing mustard off of her face. 

The entire kitchen looked like a war zone. Flour was hanging in the air from Alex making pancakes. Kara’s face and shirt were a mosaic of different condiments as she rushed to eat so they could clean up before Jeremiah and Eliza came home. 

“...Nothing. Kara, you’re not even a _little_ full?” 

Kara shook her head. “Nuh-uh.” 

Alex’s eyes drifted over to the green beans. 

“Alex I see you looking and _no.”_

“But Kara, _science!”_

“Alex, _no.”_

Alex put her hands on her hips. Kara grabbed a stick of butter and started munching on it like a popsicle. 

“Kara, _gross.”_

“You just,” Kara took another bite, “had me eat an entire bottle of plain mustard, after drinking barbecue sauce” she took another, “and suggested _eating vegetables,_ ” she finished the stick of butter, “and _this_ is where you draw the line, Alex?” 

Alex’s shoulders slumped, defeated. “You know what? I give up. That’s it. We’re never gonna figure out how much food you need to eat. Let’s just clean up.” 

Kara crumpled up the wrapper and tilted her head a little, biting her lip. 

“Aw, Alex, we tried our best.” 

“I know.” 

Kara’s brow furrowed. She hated seeing Alex disappointed. She’d tried so hard to make Kara feel better. As Alex turned to go find a vacuum, Kara grabbed the bowl of green beans. 

“Wait, Kara, what are you doing?” 

“We agreed we weren’t going to stop until I’m full, and I’m not stopping until we do that!” 

Kara took a deep breath and started eating the green beans. 

Alex was weirdly touched. Kara looked like she was going through torture, but she valiantly continued chewing, swallowing, and taking another forkful. It was a lot slower than the rest of the food, but she did it nevertheless. 

“What are you both _doing?”_

Kara looked up from her green beans. “...Hi Eliza; hi Jeremiah?” 

Alex didn’t turn around. She was afraid of their faces. “Kara, on a scale of one to ten how angry do they look right now?” 

“Hard to say. They look more confused than angry, but they might look angrier in a second.” 

Alex slowly turned around, smiling sheepishly. “Mom, Dad, I can explain--” 

“For your sake I hope you can,” Jeremiah interrupted. 

“Alex was helping me!” Kara exclaimed. “We were doing _science.”_

“‘Science?’” Eliza walked into the kitchen, looking around. “How is any of this ‘science?’” 

“It _is,_ Mom,” Alex answered defensively, “Dad, look at my clipboard. I was taking notes.” 

Jeremiah grabbed Alex’s clipboard, looking over her notes. He raised an eyebrow quizzically, then started to chuckle softly to himself. 

“Honey, come look at this.” 

Eliza walked over to Jeremiah. She looked over the clipboard and laughed. 

Alex relaxed slightly. “Uh, does that laugh mean I’m not in trouble?” 

“Girls,” Jeremiah said, “I appreciate you wanting to conduct experiments, but stuffing Kara’s face full of food until she can’t eat anymore isn’t exactly scientific.” 

“We took notes!” Alex answered again, tensing. “This was very scientific--” 

“Yeah. Alex put a lot of work into it. She made like, three boxes of pancakes.” 

“I could tell,” Eliza said, waving her hand in front of her face to dispel the flour still in the air. 

Alex guessed she’d rather be laughed at than yelled at. 

“Alex, if you and Kara want to test her sense of taste, we can do that,” Jeremiah said. “But next time, tell us first? We can put her through tests that are a little more...you know, fine tuned.” 

“Okay Dad,” Alex mumbled begrudgingly. 

“But at any rate, we’ll take these notes and file them at the lab,” Eliza added, patting Alex on the head. “So, uh, thank you honey.” 

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” 

“What would make me feel better is you cleaning this up.” Eliza sighed. “I was _going_ to make pancakes for dinner, but it looks like I’m going to have to make a trip to the store a little sooner than I planned. Kara, what do you want for dinner?” 

Kara swallowed. “Actually,” Kara pushed the plate of green beans away, looking at it distastefully. “I’m not really hungry.” 

Alex’s head snapped toward her. “Wait, you’re _not hungry?”_

Kara blinked. “Uh, no.” Her eyes widened. “No!” 

Kara jumped out of her seat and ran toward Alex. They started jumping up and down. 

“We did it! _We did it!”_

Jeremiah walked around them to stand next to Eliza. 

“I think I’m starting to remember why we were planning on only having one,” he whispered to her. Eliza lightly swatted his arm. 

“Hush, they’re getting along. That’s a _good_ thing.” 

Jeremiah smiled. 

“Come on Kara, let’s go celebrate,” Alex said. “We can go type this all up on a spreadsheet in my room.” 

“Okay!” 

“Hold on.” 

Alex grabbed the box of Ho Hos from the pantry. “Ho Hos on me!” 

“ _Really?”_

“When you’re hungry again, sure. We’re celebrating.” 

Kara grinned. “You’re the best sister ever!” 

Alex’s eyes widened for a moment. Then she smiled. 

“Yeah, you’re a pretty cool little sister too,” she said, putting an arm around Kara’s shoulders and hugging her. “Come on. We can put on a movie.” 

Kara clapped her hands together and they ran upstairs. 

“...Wait, weren’t they supposed to clean this up?” 

Eliza grabbed a broom from the laundry room. 

“Jeremiah, you know how important it is for them to bond. Let them have their fun.” 

“But this is going to take forever,” Jeremiah pointed out. 

“Yes, for you-- _I’m_ going to the store.” 

Before he could object, Eliza pushed the broom into his hands. She kissed him on the cheek and grabbed the keys as she ran out the door. 

He watched her go, frowning a little, before he sighed. Jeremiah looked upward when he heard a noise from Alex’s room--only to realize it was a squeal of laughter. He smiled and started sweeping. 


End file.
